From the Ashes

Dedication

To Annabeth Albert—you are the wind beneath my wings, lady. I never could have gotten this done without you.

To my loving husband—thanks for being in town long enough for me to write something long. I <3 having you around.

To my darling daughters—thanks for always understanding when Mommy needs to write, and for asking so kindly at dinner how my stories are going.

To my editor, Sasha Knight, and my agent, Saritza Hernandez—thanks for making Jesse and Tomas shine.

And to the Seattle firefighters who saved my house and my dog when I was in Jesse’s shoes—you are angels and heroes. I can never thank you enough.

Chapter One

Oh my God. Oh my
fucking
God.

Jesse stared up at his house, the duplex where he’d been living for the two months since he’d moved to Seattle. In thick, black clouds, smoke spilled from the windows.

Firefighters streamed in and out of the building. Someone punched through his skylight to toss boulders of his charred and damp belongings onto the concrete.

Underwear he’d left on his bed when he’d gone to work that morning lay on top of the burnt remains of his grandmother’s hand-knitted afghan.

Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

He couldn’t think.

Someone was talking to him. The voice asked about Jesse’s landlords, if Jesse knew there was a meth lab in their basement.

“No,” Jesse said. But once he’d started, he couldn’t stop the words from spilling out. “No, no, no, no, no. Fuck, no.” Mindlessly, he sprinted toward the front door. He could get something out before the fire ruined it all. The coffee table he’d bought at a secondhand store. The Christmas sweater his mom had given him even though his father wouldn’t look at him anymore.

Something.

He couldn’t let it all burn.

From behind, someone grabbed him, clutching Jesse in a bear hug. Jesse knew as soon as he felt the stiff, flame-retardant material of a firefighter’s uniform that they weren’t going to let him back inside. Sobbing, he collapsed in the guy’s arms.

That single-room studio had been the first place he’d ever felt comfortable, where he could be himself. He could be a gay man in his gay apartment and not worry about his father kicking him out.

“You can’t go inside. It’s not safe,” the firefighter said in his ear. “Do you have someone you can call? A friend or a girlfriend? Um…a boyfriend?”

Jesse blinked back tears. He had a few numbers in his phone, friends he knew from class or work, but he didn’t know any of them well enough to lay on them the fact that his motherfucking house had just burned from the inside out.

The only number he could think of calling was the one he refused to consider. No, Jesse was not calling his parents. No fucking way. He’d live on the streets first.

“I can’t. I don’t…” He wiped the back of his hand across his face. “I just… Give me a second.”

“Take all the time you need.” Tomas kept a hand on the kid’s arm in case he ran for it again.

Everyone panicked when they got home to find their house on fire. The initial “No, No, No,”—the first stage of grief—was universal. Sometimes victims sped past denial directly to bargaining. Older women fell to their knees and started praying, as if God could turn back time or fix their faulty wiring. Men were more likely to fly into rages, shouting at neighbors or firefighters. Even their wives or kids. So Tomas wasn’t surprised by the wide glassy eyes and erratic behavior of the queer kid who lived above the Central District meth lab.

Tomas shouldn’t have noticed the fit of the kid’s skinny jeans or that his hipster T-shirt was pockmarked with holes. And he definitely shouldn’t have found it cute that his sandy-brown hair hung long in the front but was shaved in back. Eight hours past the end of his shift, Tomas was running on adrenaline and coffee. He needed to keep his mind on his work.

“You lived here, right?” Tomas gestured behind him to the damp and burnt-out shell of the duplex.

The kid looked at him through red-rimmed eyes. Pinching his lips together, he nodded.

“You’re okay.” Tomas rubbed the kid’s arm, trying to calm him down. “No one got hurt. There was no one inside the building.” He wanted to drag the kid into his arms for a hug. He looked like he needed it, but responders weren’t allowed any unnecessary touching of victims. Tomas hoped that one of the kid’s friends or neighbors would show up soon to hold his hand.

Lips pale, the guy shivered.

“You didn’t have any pets right? We didn’t see a dog or a cat.” Sweat slicked inside Tomas’s clothes from his time rushing through the building earlier. The last few guys were snuffing out the fire on the top floor, and half the team was already loading equipment back on the truck.

“No.” The queer kid sucked in air in giant gulps. “But the landlords. They had a… They had a dog.” He shook his head again, like he was clearing his mind enough to talk. “She’s in a cage out back. Her name is Chardonnay. Oh my God, is she hurt?”

Tomas put his arm around the kid’s shoulders, urging him to sit down. “I’m sure the dog’s fine. The fire never worked through the outer walls of the building.”

The guy’s narrow shoulders trembled.

“I’ll tell them to check, okay?” Tomas pulled out his intercom and asked one of the guys inside if he could see a dog out back.

Rick, his buddy on the other end of the line, replied yes.

Tomas smiled. “The dog’s fine.” He wasn’t sure if the kid heard him, though, because his eyes were unfocused.

“What’s your name?” Tomas rubbed his back.

The guy blinked up at him, as if he couldn’t remember. After a swallow of air, he said, “Jesse. Jesse Smith.”

“Okay, Jesse.” Tomas kept his voice low and soothing. At any moment Jesse might flip from his current mode of denial into a volatile burst of anger. “I’m Tomas Perez, and I’m not going to leave until I’m sure you have a place to stay tonight, okay?” He tried to make eye contact.

The gaze that met his was hazel green—beautiful and rimmed with light brown lashes. Blinking, Jesse glanced away. His focus bounced around the yard, house and street in a distracted jumble. “You’re sure Chardonnay is okay? Can I go check on her? She’s probably freaking out.”

Tomas put his hand on Jesse’s shoulder. He squeezed, feeling Jesse’s sinewy muscles under the material of his T-shirt. No. He shouldn’t have noticed that, either. “We’ll go to the backyard in a second. Just let them finish the work inside.”

A woman parked her car across the street, and Tomas could tell by the way she hurried over that she must be one of Jesse’s neighbors. With a concerned expression, she bent to touch Jesse’s arm. “Oh, honey,” she crooned. “You okay?” Her words flowed like molasses. She reminded Tomas of his
abuela
, the type of woman who could make everything okay with a pat on the head and a cup of warm milk.

By the truck, his squad leader gestured to him with impatient waves. Tomas jogged toward him, never taking his eyes off where Jesse and his neighbor were crouched on the ground.

“The first truck is heading back to the station. How’s he doing? Should we put in a call to the Red Cross?” Steve, Tomas’s boss, scanned some papers on his clipboard.

“I’ll ask him.” Tomas started back toward Jesse, but his boss touched his shoulder.

“How about you? You holding up? Carl made it in to work, so you’re free to leave.”

Tomas yawned. “I’m okay.” He was due for a hot date with his bed, but he didn’t want to leave before he knew the kid was okay. “He hasn’t called anyone yet.”

“Why don’t you stay with him for a bit? See if he needs assistance.” Steve turned his back on Tomas to load more gear onto the truck. “I’ll let you know when we’re ready to leave.”

Jesse wasn’t sure why he was sitting. Maybe the firefighter had forced him onto his ass. Or maybe he’d collapsed.

The sirens had gone quiet, and the firemen finished up on the house, stretching tape across the doors and windows.

“Honey?” The woman from down the block rubbed his back, like she was trying to get his attention. “Don’t you want to call your momma?”

Jesse didn’t know how to answer, so he shrugged. His father had told him in no uncertain terms he could no longer live at home if he was going to “choose” to be gay.

Fuck his parents. He refused to go crawling back to those assholes in their stupid small town. “No. She’s dead.”

He didn’t wish that on his mother. He still loved her somewhere deep inside, but his mom had backed his father every step of the way, never once standing up for her only son. She may as well have been dead.

“Maybe a relative?” She offered her cellphone.

“No, thanks.” Jesse didn’t have any of those, either.

Pulling him to his feet, the older woman dragged him into a hug. She was older than Jesse’s mom and some mix of races that made her skin the color of a latte, but with darker freckles on her nose. Gray streaked her frizzy hair.

“Thanks,” Jesse said into her shoulder. She was part of a different world, the type of low-income folks who’d been living in the neighborhood long before the occasional broke college kid had dared to move in. Humbled by her kindness, Jesse sniffed back his tears.

“There, there. You’ll be okay.” The woman released him but held on to his hand. She patted it calmly, and her presence made Jesse want to curl into her arms.

One of the firefighters came back to his side. Jesse wasn’t sure if it was the same one who’d been speaking to him before or whether it was a new one.

“Do you feel ready to make any calls?” the fireman asked.

Jesse dug in his pocket for his cellphone. Maybe he could call Michael, who was his friend at the coffee shop where he worked. They weren’t close, but Michael might be willing to give him a ride. All of his old friends were still back in Pullman.

“The Red Cross can help if you have nowhere to go.” The fireman put a hand on his shoulder. “Vouchers for hotels and food…”

Jesse panicked all over again, his voice squeaking. “No. No, I don’t need any help.” His father volunteered for the Red Cross back in Pullman, and Jesse would bet his life that one of the Seattle volunteers would call his parents. No way did he want his dad knowing where he was.

Jesse would have to cope on his own.

An Animal Control van pulled up onto his street, and the uniformed woman who got out spoke to one of the remaining firefighters. Jesse watched as the firefighter pointed to the alley.

“What are they going to do with Chardonnay?” Before Jesse knew what he was doing, he was on his feet, rushing into the alley.

“Hey.” The firefighter grabbed his arm. Or maybe it was a different firefighter. All Jesse could see were their yellow uniforms with the silver reflective stripes. His mind was spinning too fast to differentiate anyone besides the woman who’d given him a hug, and even her he could barely remember.

“Where are you going?” The firefighter tugged him to a stop.

Pushing him off, Jesse rushed into the alley. Char was alone and neglected, and if Animal Control took her, they might put her down. Who knew whether Sid and Ladonna would bother claiming her, even if they didn’t get arrested.

“I’m getting the dog.” He opened the chain-link fence that led to a backyard littered with old auto parts and debris from the fire. Flaps of insulation leaned against the dog’s cage, and crepe-paper ash coated everything, even Chardonnay’s fur.

Standing on her back legs, Char scraped at her cage. She barked like crazy, though Jesse guessed she’d been barking the whole time they’d been putting out the fire and he’d only now noticed.

Char barked whenever sirens passed, and whenever she saw any kind of dog or human being. In a nicer neighborhood someone probably would have called Animal Control a long time ago.

“You sure she won’t bite?” The firefighter hung back a few paces.

Jesse unraveled the chain Sid and Ladonna had wrapped around the cage door. “Yeah. She’s a sweet dog if you get to know her. I’m gonna give her some water before I open the door.” Jesse went to where a ratty hose was attached to a spout outside of the building.

“I’m not sure they’ll allow you to take the dog.” The firefighter wasn’t mean about it. He sounded more concerned. “But I’ll do what I can to help.”